How to Grow Your Twitter Following Exponentially?

Boost Your Online Visibility with Twitter 20 Tips on How to Grow Your Twitter Following Copyright TweetHotBooks.com. You are allowed to distribute this free report to as many people as possible, upload it to pirate sites as well if you like to, provided that you don’t modify its contents.

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*************************************************************************** There are lots of easy ways to build your Twitter following. We already offer a service which can boost your twitter following organically, but if you prefer the DIY approach then this report is for you. So you don’t get bored with a long intro about the many benefits of having a large Twitter following (you already know about that, don’t you? You won't have bothered to check out this report otherwise), let us cut right to the chase.

Tip #1: Get yourself listed in popular Twitter directories:

One of the best and easiest ways to get a massive number of followers on your Twitter account (without resorting to black hat methods, that is) is by adding your Twitter profile to public Twitter directories. There are several Twitter directories, large and small, and the more directories you get yourself added to, the bigger your chances are of getting followers.

a) Book Trade Directory http://www.booktradedirectory.com/

Book Trade Directory is mainly for book bloggers, book reviewers, publishers, literary agents, etc. If you fall into any of these categories you can get yourself listed there. They have a separate directory for authors as well.

b) Twellow: https://www.twellow.com/splash/

This is a huge public directory of Twitter accounts. The directory is easily searchable by multiple categories and other search features. Don’t forget to get yourself listed here. As the website says: "Twellow is the place where you can get more Twitter followers in hundreds of relevant business categories, or in your geographical area through our exclusive Twellowhood tool."

c) Connect.me http://connect.me/

One of the best ways to expand your Twitter fan base, as well as deepen your relationship with your existing followers, is by recommending them to others. Connect.me is one site which aids you in that regard.

d) Just Tweet It http://justtweetit.com/

Just Tweet It is yet another Twitter directory which lets you find other Twitter accounts by categories, as well as offers you the ability to add your own account to the directory. Pretty useful eh?

e) Twitter Counter http://twittercounter.com/

Want to check your own Twitter stats? If analytics are your area of interest and you want to know about how well (or how bad) you are doing on Twitter, then Twitter Counter is your friend. Thankfully, the stats are not just a bunch of numbers but also quite helpful in that they are full of "actionable" steps as mentioned on their website.

f) Legal Birds http://legalbirds.justia.com/

Legal Birds, as the name indicates, is strictly for those in the profession of law. Whether you are an academic, professional or a librarian, you can list your name on the site as long as your main area of interest is law.

g) Twitaholic: http://twitaholic.com/

Twitaholic is one place where you can go to flaunt your Twitter following. The directory actually sorts out the Twitter users based on the number of followers they have!

Want to know how to get MORE twitter followers using a hands-free approach? Check out our service here.

h)Loaded Web http://www.ibegin.com/twitter/

If you are looking for a Twitter directory that is more "localized", well this is it. If you are located in the USA, Canada or the UK you may also want to take a look at http://www.localtweeps.com/ which is specially targeted to these countries.

i) Twibs http://twibs.com/ Featuring thousands of hot business topics and more than 50,000 business users (both small and big), Twibs is the perfect directory for any kind of entrepreneur or businessperson.

Tip #2: Using Influencer marketing:

They say that the way to be counted among the elite is by walking shoulder to shoulder with the elite themselves. Now the same is true for online social media as well. If you want to become an Influencer in your niche, you have to engage with the REAL Influencers in your industry, people who can shake or break things, so to speak. This strategy will not only increase your Twitter following exponentially but also drive lots of traffic to your website or blog. Influencer marketing should be an important part of your overall social media strategy; after all, top search engines such as Google are now counting a person's social influence as a factor for ranking their website in SERPs.

When you connect yourself with the movers and shakers of your industry, your own influence increases manifold. People trust you more than they would have otherwise, when they see that you are well connected with the big shots of the industry. These Influencers have thousands of followers in their Twitter accounts and getting connected with them means that you too will end up gaining a certain number of followers, as these Influencers recommend you to their own followers.

So how do you go about it? Klout is a very well known social influence measurement tool that has been around for some time. You can sign up for this service at https://klout.com/home. It puts together your activity over several social media websites apart from Twitter and then uses that aggregated data to measure your overall social media influence. Your influence can be scored anywhere from 1 to 100 - 100 being the best and most coveted position. Used prudently, Klout can indeed help you find the right Influencers who can help you with your requirements. If you are a Chrome user then this extension makes your life just a bit easier -https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/klout/jjaakbhpcbpmojkhpiaacepfcaniglak? hl=en -by showing your (as well as of anyone you search for using hashtags) Klout score right on your Twitter timeline! You can use this extension to easily identify the top Influencers of your industry by checking out their Klout scores.

There are other social influence metric tools such as Hootsuite, Socialmention, etc., but Klout is by far the oldest and easiest tool to use.

Tip #3: Time it right:

On Twitter, timing is everything. You can schedule your tweet to go out at the right time, which can mean a lot of retweets and followers for you. However, the same Tweet posted at the wrong time could mean a waste of your efforts. So how do you determine the right time for your tweet? You need to know when most of your followers are online so that you can schedule your tweet accordingly. Fortunately there is one tool which can help you with just that!

Step 1: Join http://www.tweriod.com/ in order to know the time during which most of your followers are online, so that you can schedule your tweets accordingly.

Step 2: Use Buffer to schedule the tweets: Now that you know about the right time to post your tweet, you need a tweet scheduler to help you with the posting. Buffer https://buffer.com/is a very popular tool among Twitter fanatics and not without reason.

Buffer is the number one tool for scheduling your tweets according to the time suggested by Tweriod. The app comes in both free and paid versions; the free version lets you schedule up to 10 tweets at a time. Apart from scheduling your tweets, you can also check into your Twitter account regularly in order to have meaningful conversations with your followers.

Keep in mind that it is far better to have 20 followers who regularly converse with you, retweet your tweets and recommend you to their peers, than 2,000 fake and useless followers who do nothing other than making up a high number. If your account has a lot of fake followers or you are unsuccessful at getting real followers, you are not alone. We have a service whereby we help clients get REAL and targeted followers who bring actual traffic and influence to their online businesses. Sign up here to avail of this extremely affordable and hands-free service.

Tip #4: Create an engaging and interesting bio: A lot of Twitter users cannot be bothered to have a useful bio that actually TELLS people about WHO they are. Why would anyone want to follow you if they don’t even know who you are? Commonsense, right? Yet very few people actually have useful bios on their Twitter profiles (this includes even top celebrities as well). Your bio should basically talk about who you are and what you do, as succinctly as possible. Your bio should not be a fake one nor should it be boring or spammy. Include some keywords in your bio which are relevant to your niche and are likely to help people find you more easily, but don't overdo it or else it might look spammy.

Tip #5: Put a REAL picture of yourself on your profile:

We understand that not everyone is comfortable with uploading their pictures online but if you are courageous enough to do that it can definitely increase your Twitter following manifold. People want to interact with a living, breathing person, not some 'cold company'.

If you are trying to build your own brand then you can also upload a picture of your product or your company logo, however the results would be less effective. After all, no matter how much technology tries to change our lives, we humans are still social creatures and prefer to interact with actual people; your photo makes them believe that you are a real person.

People respond with more emotion and trust to a human face than a company logo. If yours is a local business, then adding your location will only help build trust further. If you live in a small town you should list the largest city close to you as your location; this way you will get a lot of followers from your own area and even beyond!

Tip #6: Make the most out of hashtags:

Hashtags are not only there to show you what's trending on Twitter; hashtags also help Twitter users track content. By using the proper hashtags you can get noticed by a lot of people, thereby gaining you followers. Using extremely popular hashtags may not get you anywhere, however, so be sure to choose something that is not very competitive and also relevant to your business. If in doubt you can take a look at how the Influencers in your niche are using hashtags in their own tweets.

Tip #7: Interact with other users:

Twitter is not an advertising platform where you post your ad and then forget about it, expecting people to visit your site in hoards. It does not work that way anymore. If you want to get some good benefits from your Twitter account, then you need to INTERACT with your followers on a regular basis. You should spend a considerable amount of time retweeting, replying, mentioning and tagging others' content and very little time in pitching your own product or service. Once you have a considerable following you can make an exception to this rule once in a while, by posting a sales message or broadcasting an ad, but be careful about crossing the boundary or you may end up losing followers. As you mention other users in your tweet, it can make a big difference for your own business even if they only have 100 followers, as most would reciprocate by mentioning your name in their tweets, which means your name gets out in front of all the followers of that person. Overtime you will catch the attention of the industry leaders and Influencers who love getting their ego stroked by retweets; several may even thank you for the recommendation by mentioning your Twitter ID in their own tweets, which again only means more and more followers for you. You should always reply to all tweets publicly and use the direct messaging system as scarcely as possible. Use your followers' names in your retweets as often as possible - this will work in your favor by getting you more mentions, tweets and follows.

Just be sure to ask for the person's permission whose name you are going to mention in your tweet, or your account maybe suspended. A few other things to keep in mind about retweeting are: you should not retweet old, dated content, as Twitter is all about staying current and relevant; you should also not retweet just about everything simply for the sake of retweeting; you should retweet only interesting and relevant content or else you risk losing your existing followers instead of gaining any; if your content has lame headlines, poor quality images, etc., you need to do a better job as you are going to get very few followers with such quality of content, if any; a great skill to learn is to become an engaging storyteller: create stories in the form of tweets and people will flock to follow you; another skill to learn would be copywriting: the more engaging and killer your headlines are, the more followers and traffic you get; if you don’t have anything interesting or helpful to post, you can ask questions as a way of engaging with your followers.

Another thing to keep in mind is that while it is a very good idea to follow the Influencers in your niche, you should not follow those who hardly follow people; you must have seen celebs on Twitter with 10,000 followers while they are following just 50 or 60 people. It may be tempting to follow them, and while there is no harm in that, just remember that 9 out of 10 times they are NOT going to follow you back. Following popular people is a great way to get yourself noticed in front of their followers but you are not going to get that benefit if they don't interact with you, right?

Tip #8: Add more content than ads:

The 80/20 rule applies everywhere, but more so when you are using social media for traffic.

The general etiquette you should follow is: 80% of your tweets should be content, while the rest can be ads. You can certainly make exceptions to the rule once in a while when you have gathered a decent following and a reputation to leech off, but until then it is better to play the 'good guy' than risk losing followers. If your start your social media interaction with ads and broadcast style messages, then you are doomed to fail. One of the best ways to promote your business on Twitter would be by doing it in a non-pushy manner: write a helpful article on your blog, add a couple of soft sales pitches within the blog post and then let your Twitter followers know about it and promote it for you (if it is useful content then they WILL promote it). Believe it or not there are many who join Twitter just to spam others and Twitter users have, as a result, become highly desensitized to pushy salesmen; they have become smart enough to distinguish between someone who is there to help and those who are there just to make money. Spend most of your time on social media building your brand and garnering respect for your business; you will have plenty of opportunities to do the 'selling' later on.

Tip #9: Be clear and concise:

Tweets cannot be longer than 140 characters each, so it is a good skill to learn to post a message within that character limit with as much clarity as possible. The more easily and clearly your message is understood, the more followers you will gain. If your tweets are vague or obscure then no one will follow you. While brevity is extremely important on Twitter, it should not be at the cost of clarity. The same is true of your Twitter bio: make it as lucid as possible so people can get a clear picture of you and your business.

Tip# 11: Try to stay optimistic and positive:

Your tweets should offer people hope and inspiration, rather than demoralizing or depressing them. If you cannot do anything except ranting or being negative then you should not even be on social media to begin with. Twitter is so full of complaints and rants that most people have learned to avoid and un-follow those who post such negative tweets.

Try to stay as positive as possible on Twitter, even if you had a bad day. If your tweets are full of warmth and positivity, then you will definitely gain followers.

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Tip #12: Don’t be a copycat:

Everyone has a unique style of writing, and as long as it does not put people off, there is no harm in using it. People generally tend to copy the big cats of the industry, but keep in mind that being a copycat will only take you so far. If you want to be as successful as the big guys, you should adopt a unique style of approaching and engaging with your followers. Make yourself stand out by being the interesting and unique person that you are, rather than just one among the thousands of business owners! If you take a close look at the tweets posted by the Influencers in your industry, you will not fail to notice the unique style of each tweet which can be easily attributed to the poster. That is how you want your tweets to be; you want people to be able to easily relate to your tweeting style with you and your business; the more you do it, the more you will enhance the brand image of your business.

Tip #13: Be choosey about who you follow:

If you look closely at the profiles of the Influencers of your industry, you will notice that the number of followers they have far outnumber the number of people THEY are following.

There is a very good reason for that. You surely don't want to follow anyone except your best followers, people you would want to interact with closely and want to know more about.

While having a large number of followers is indeed a good idea, following everyone who follows you can sometimes be counterproductive.

Tip #14: Do not use auto-follow:

Using auto-follow is just like going on a blind date, or perhaps, even worse, more often than not it is going to hurt you and your interests. Why would you want to follow somebody without even taking a close look at who they are? If you use auto-follow then more often than not you will get spammers and bots as followers instead of real people. Again, it all comes down to interaction: if you don’t have time to interact with your followers then hire someone trustworthy to do it for you. That is much better than trying to put the whole social media thing on autopilot, which never really works to anyone's advantage.

Tip #15: Be prompt with replies:

Twitter is all about real-time engagement and if you cannot do that then Twitter is not for you. If the best you can do is to reply to your tweets only once a day, then you should hire someone who can interact with your followers in real time. People want to do business with those who can reply fast because that tells them that if they have any problems with the business then they will be able to get quick support. Besides, late replies to tweets actually kills what could have been an otherwise lively conversation (the same is true of Instagram and Facebook as well, but let’s not digress).

Tip #16: Do not buy followers:

Buying followers is just like buying mailing list subscribers; more often than not you will get junk followers who will neither engage nor interact with you; worse, they may even unfollow you. It is far better to hire an organic Twitter account management service that helps you gather REAL followers according to your target niche than wasting money on buying followers. A lot of people will tell you that people are more likely to follow someone with a lot of followers, and while that may be true, buying followers is not a very prudent strategy if you are going to be in business for a long time.

Tip #17: Ask for retweets:

The old adage "if you don’t ask for something, you won't get it" is very much true for social media. While you should not do this with every tweet you post, if you feel you are posting something that has useful content and is worthy of getting retweeted, then ask your followers to retweet the content. Some will, some won’t, but that's life. Keep in mind: with every retweet your chance of gaining followers increases.

Tip #18: Don’t limit yourself to Twitter:

Build your profiles on other social media platforms, such as Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, etc., then leverage those profiles to get followers for your Twitter account by linking to your Twitter account on those profiles. Similarly, if you have a blog you can ask your readers to follow you on Twitter. If you do a lot of email marketing then adding your Twitter profile link in your email signature is one of the best ways to gain loads of followers.

Tip #19: Get rid of the spammers:

Spammers are everywhere and Twitter is no exception. If you find a spammer among your followers then block and report him or her; if you find an imposter then report him or her as well. Spammers usually either have keywords in their usernames, use only first names or have very long names. Imposters are, of course, clearly recognizable: they try to steal your identity and pretend to be someone they are not: you. Spammers and imposters can indeed kill your business faster than any of your pushy salesman tactics ever could, so be sure to 'kill' them at the first opportunity you get. Also, if you use an automation app for Twitter then having spammers among your followers can confuse such apps. If you want people to trust you, only keep followers who are professional as well as useful.

Tip #20: Unfollow your cold followers:

There will always be people you are following who won't follow you back, interact with you or retweet your tweets. Managefritter http://manageflitter.com/ is one tool which can help you identify those who don’t follow you back, so that you can un-follow them!

Do you find this to be too much work? Don’t want to do the hard work? You don’t have to.

Life is too short to be wasted on tedious tasks such as these, especially when we have an effective and affordable service which can grow your Twitter following without you ever lifting a finger! Sign up today at http://tweethotbooks.com/grow-your-twitter-following/